Also Wishing I Could Have Saved the Maple
Sharon Kennedy-Nolle

They told me the maple, perfectly healthy,
had to come down.
After one hundred-plus hardy years, suddenly
too near the high wires.
Despite all the bud sure in the offing.

Nothing we could do but watch
hardhats and chainsaws,
sawdust growl and pile.
                                         Wrong, all wrong.
Watch and wait,
just as we had to about you.

Opening Christmas presents,
when the police—no less than three—
head-hung, at the door,

opened by your younger brothers,
who ran away, upstairs.

Sorry, sorry,
they said, in hardwood honesty.

Presents never opened.

Shoved aside by yours, the big box, the worst.

Wrong, all wrong.

If I had thought,
maybe the maple
could have been saved,
its fine grain stained
into something else.

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